The Review of ISO/IEC 17043 - Requirements for PT Providers

Steve Sidney, National Laboratory Association - South Africa, Pretoria, South Africa (steves@nla.org.za)

Since the publication of ISO 17043, a standard dealing with the requirements for the provision of Proficiency Testing Providers, the standard has not only become widely accepted but has also been accepted by the International Laboratory Accreditation Co-operation (ILAC) and a Multi-Lateral Agreement was signed in recent years. This, coupled with recently adopted requirements in ISO/IEC 17025, has further enhanced its usage, acceptability as well as credibility.

In line with the International Standards Organisation’s (ISO) policy of periodically reviewing standards, a decision was taken in late 2019 to begin the review process of the standard. This process started in 2020, just as the COVID-19 pandemic began, but the work has now virtually been concluded and the Working Group is confident that the reviewed standard will be published in the 1^st Quarter of 2023.

This presentation will provide an overview of the process as well as what changes can be expected and will be of interest both to providers as well as those participating in PT Schemes. The presenter was a co-convenor of the working group and plans to share his views on this work.

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Short Biography of Presenting Author

Steve Sidney graduated from the University of Johannesburg, formerly known as the Witwatersrand Technikon, with a 4 year National Diploma in Electrical Engineering Light Current and went on to make a career for himself in the area of Test & Measurement. After working for Fluke South Africa, he started his own business, which was ultimately sold to Altech, a large multi-disciplined JSE Listed Electronics/Telecomm’s corporation. He was subsequently appointed the Managing Director of Altech Instruments in the mid 80’s, a position he held until 1997. After spending some time in a recruitment business, he elected to begin a management-consulting practice.

All along, he has been actively involved in laboratory, as well as accreditation issues. Steve was appointed a Board Member of both the NLA as well as SANAS in the early 90’s and is currently the Executive Director of the NLA-SA. He is also the current Chairman of the multi-economy Accreditation Body SADCAS, which is based in Gaberone, Botswana which was accepted as a full ILAC Member in 2015.

Representing the NLA he is an active member of a number of organisations such as Eurolab, and is the past Chair of ILAC‘s Laboratory Committee (LC) as well as being a member of  a number of other ILAC committees including Chair of the Financial and Audit Committee.

Over the past 10 years he has also made a contribution to standards development and iSinc es the current chair of SABS TC003, the South African mirror committee of ISO/CASCO. He was one of the convenors of ISO/CASCO WG44 during the review of ISO17025 between 2014-2017 and has recently been appointed as a co-convenor of WG57 to review ISO/IEC 17043 for PT Providers.